July 18, 2008

Low-Carb Diets Best for Weight

by ssavage

ATLANTA - The Atkins diet might have proved itself after all: A low-carb diet and a Mediterranean-style regimen helped people lose more weight than a traditional low-fat diet in one of the longest and largest studies to compare the dueling weight-loss techniques.

Another surprise: The low-carb diet improved cholesterol more than the other two. Some critics had predicted the opposite.

"It is a vindication," said Abby Bloch, of the Dr. Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Foundation, a philanthropy group that honors the Atkins' diet's creator and was the study's main funder.

All three approaches - the low-carb diet, a low-fat diet and a Mediterranean diet - achieved weight loss and improved cholesterol. The study is remarkable not only because it lasted two years, much longer than most, but also because of the huge proportion of people who stuck with the diets - 85 percent.

The Atkins Foundation played no role in the study's design or reporting of the results, said the lead author, Iris Shai, of Ben- Gurion University of the Negev.

Other experts said the study, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, was highly credible.

"This is a very good group of researchers," said Kelly Brownell, the director of Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

The research was done in a controlled environment in Israel. The 322 participants got their main meal of the day, lunch, at a central cafeteria. In the cafeteria, the foods for each diet were identified with colored dots.

As for breakfast and dinner, the dieters were counseled on how to stick to their eating plans and were asked to fill out questionnaires on what they ate, said Dr. Meir Stampfer, the study's senior author and a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The low-fat diet restricted calories and cholesterol and focused on grains, vegetables and fruits. The Mediterranean diet had similar calorie, fat and cholesterol restrictions, emphasizing poultry, fish, olive oil and nuts.

The low-carb diet set limits for carbohydrates, but none for calories or fat. It urged dieters to choose vegetarian sources of fat and protein.